The COMMENCEMENT SPEECH EVERY COLLEGE
STUDENT NEEDS TO HEAR !!!

Neal Boortz, 2007

Sadly, this speech has never been delivered at any college or a university.
It was written to protest the fact that such an invitation has never been
offered! However, it has been delivered on Neal's talk radio show, printed
in his book, "The Terrible Truth About Liberals," and produced on a limited
edition CD that he sells. The real irony is that had this commencement
speech been more widely distributed, it would have been the subject of more
comments than just about any commencement speech that actually has been
delivered at any college or university in the past 50 years.

NB: Typo's and other grammar corrected...since I can't tell if it was
an error by the original sender...or in my understanding. In any event,
the tone, tenor, and impact of Neal's speech wasn't altered.

"I am honored by the invitation to address you on this august occasion.
It's about time. Be warned, however, that I am not here to impress you; as
you'll have enough of that smoke blown up your bloomers today. And you can
bet your tassels I'm not here to impress the faculty and administration.
You may not like much of what I have to say, and that's fine. You will
remember it though. Especially after about 10 years out there in the real
world. This, it goes without saying, does not apply to those of you who
will seek your careers and your fortunes as government employees.

This gowned gaggle behind me is your faculty. You've heard the old
saying that, Those who can—do. Those who can't—teach." I know
that sounds deliciously insensitive. But there is often raw truth in
insensitivity, just as you often find feel-good falsehoods and lies in
compassion. Say good-bye to your faculty because now you are getting ready
to go out there and do. These folks behind me are going to stay right here
and teach.

By the way, just because you are leaving this place with a diploma doesn't
mean the learning is over. When an FAA flight examiner handed me my
private pilot's license many years ago, he said, 'Here, this is your ticket to
learn.' The same can be said for your diploma. Believe me, the
learning has just begun.

Now, I realize that most of you consider yourselves Liberals. In fact,
you are probably very proud of your liberal views. You care so much.
You feel so much. You want to help so much. After all you're a
compassionate and caring person, aren't you now? Well, isn't that just so
extraordinarily special! Now, at this age, it is as good a time as any to
be a liberal; as good a time as any to know absolutely everything. You
have plenty of time, starting tomorrow, for the truth to set in.

Over the next few years, as you begin to feel the cold breath of reality down
your neck, things are going to start changing pretty fast...including your own
assessment of just how much you really know. So here are the first
assignments for your initial class in reality: Pay attention to the news,
read newspapers, and listen to the words and phrases that proud Liberals use to
promote their causes. Then, compare the words of the left to the words and
phrases you hear from those evil, heartless, greedy conservatives. From
the Left you will hear "I feel." From the Right you will hear "I think."
From the Liberals you will hear references to groups — The Blacks, the Poor,
The Rich, The Disadvantaged, The Less Fortunate. From the Right you will
hear references to individuals. On the Left you hear talk of group rights;
on the Right, individual rights.

That about sums it up, really: Liberals feel. Liberals care. They
are pack animals whose identity is tied up in group dynamics.
Conservatives and Libertarians think—and, setting aside the theocracy crowd,
their identity is centered on the individual. Liberals feel that their
favored groups have enforceable rights to the property and services of
productive individuals. Conservatives and Libertarians, I among them I
might add, think that individuals have the right to protect their lives and
their property from the plunder of the masses.

In college you developed a group mentality, but if you look closely at your
diplomas you will see that they have your individual names on them; not the name
of your school mascot, or of your fraternity or sorority, but your name. Your
group identity is going away. Your recognition and appreciation of your
individual identity starts now. If, by the time you reach the age of 30, you do
not consider yourself to be a libertarian or a conservative, rush right back
here as quickly as you can and apply for a faculty position. These people will
welcome you with open arms. They will welcome you, that is, so long as you
haven't developed an individual identity. Once again you will have to be willing
to sign on to the group mentality you embraced during the past four years.

Something is going to happen soon that is going to really open your eyes. You're
going to actually get a full time job! You're also going to get a lifelong work
partner. This partner isn't going to help you do your job. This partner is just
going to sit back and wait for payday. This partner doesn't want to share in
your effort, but in your earnings. Your new lifelong partner is actually an
agent; an agent representing a strange and diverse group of people; an agent for
every teenager with an illegitimate child; an agent for a research scientist who
wanted to make some cash answering the age-old question of why monkeys grind
their teeth; an agent for some poor demented hippie who considers herself to be
a meaningful and talented artist, but who just can't manage to sell any of her
artwork on the open market.

Your new partner is an agent for every person with limited, if any, job skills,
but who wanted a job at City Hall; an agent for tin-horn dictators in fancy
military uniforms grasping for American foreign aid; an agent for multi-million-
dollar companies who want someone else to pay for their overseas advertising; an
agent for everybody who wants to use the unimaginable power of this agent for
their personal enrichment and benefit.

That agent is our wonderful, caring, compassionate, oppressive government. Believe me, you will be awed by the unimaginable power this agent has. Power
that you do not have. A power that no individual has, or will have. This agent
has the legal power to use force, deadly force to accomplish its goals.

You have no choice here. Your new friend is just going to walk up to you,
introduce itself rather gruffly, hand you a few forms to fill out, and move
right on in. Say hello to your own personal one ton gorilla. It will sleep
anywhere it wants to. Now, let me tell you, this agent is not cheap. As you
become successful it will seize about 40% of everything you earn. And no, I'm
sorry, there just isn't any way you can fire this agent of plunder, and you
can't decrease its share of your income. That power rests with him, not you.

So, here I am saying negative things to you about your government. Well, be clear on
this: It is not wrong to distrust government. It is not wrong to fear
government. In certain cases it is not even wrong to despise government for
government is inherently evil. Yes...a necessary evil, but dangerous
nonetheless...somewhat like a drug. Just as a drug that in the proper dosage
can save your life, an overdose of government can be fatal.

Now let's address a few things that have been crammed into your minds at this
university. There are some ideas you need to expunge as soon as possible. These
ideas may work well in academic environment, but they fail miserably out there
in the real world. First is that favorite buzz word of the media, government and
academia: Diversity! You have been taught that the real value of any group of
people—be it a social group, an employee group, a management group, whatever—is based on diversity. This is a favored liberal ideal because diversity is
based not on an individual's abilities or character, but on a person's identity
and status as a member of a group. Yes, it's that liberal group identity thing
again.

Within the great diversity movement group identification—be it racial, gender
based, or some other minority status—means more than the individual's
integrity, character or other qualifications. Brace yourself. You are about to
move from this academic atmosphere where diversity rules, to a workplace and a
culture where individual achievement and excellence actually count. No matter
what your professors have taught you over the last four years, you are about to
learn that diversity is absolutely no replacement for excellence, ability, and
individual hard work. From this day on every single time you hear the word
"diversity" you can rest assured that there is someone close by who is
determined to rob you of every vestige of individuality you possess.

We also need to address this thing you seem to have about "rights." We have
witnessed an obscene explosion of so-called "rights" in the last few decades,
usually emanating from college campuses. You know the mantra: You have the right
to a job. The right to a place to live. The right to a living wage. The right to
health care. The right to an education. You probably even have your own pet
right—the right to a Beemer for instance, or the right to have someone else
provide for that child you plan on downloading in a year or so. Forget it. Forget those rights! I'll tell you what your rights are! You have a right to
live free, and to the results of 60% -75% of your labor. I'll also tell you have
no right to any portion of the life or labor of another.

You may, for instance, think that you have a right to health care. After all,
Hillary said so, didn't she? But you cannot receive healthcare unless some
doctor or health practitioner surrenders some of his time—his life—to you. He may be willing to do this for compensation, but that's his choice. You have
no "right" to his time or property. You have no right to his or any other
person's life or to any portion thereof. You may also think you have some
"right" to a job; a job with a living wage, whatever that is. Do you mean to
tell me that you have a right to force your services on another person, and then
the right to demand that this person compensate you with their money? Sorry,
forget it. I am sure you would scream if some urban outdoorsmen (that would be
"homeless person" for those of you who don't want to give these less fortunate
people a romantic and adventurous title) came to you and demanded his job and
your money.

The people who have been telling you about all the rights you have are simply
exercising one of theirs—the right to be imbeciles. Their being imbeciles
didn't cost anyone else either property or time. It's their right, and they
exercise it brilliantly. By the way, did you catch my use of the phrase "less
fortunate" a bit ago when I was talking about the urban outdoorsmen? That phrase
is a favorite of the Left. Think about it, and you'll understand why.

To imply that one person is homeless, destitute, dirty, drunk, spaced out on
drugs, unemployable, and generally miserable because he is "less fortunate" is
to imply that a successful person—one with a job, a home and a future—is in
that position because he or she was "fortunate." The dictionary says that
fortunate means "having derived good from an unexpected place." There is nothing
unexpected about deriving good from hard work. There is also nothing unexpected
about deriving misery from choosing drugs, alcohol, and the street.

If the Liberal Left can create the common perception that success and failure
are simple matters of "fortune" or "luck," then it is easy to promote and
justify their various income redistribution schemes. After all, we are just
evening out the odds a little bit. This "success equals luck" idea the liberals
like to push is seen everywhere. Former Democratic presidential candidate
Richard Gephardt refers to high-achievers as "people who have won life's
lottery." He wants you to believe they are making the big bucks because they are
lucky. It's not luck, my friends. It's choice. One of the greatest lessons I
ever learned was in a book by Og Mandino , entitled "The Greatest Secret in the
World." The lesson? Very simple: "Use wisely your power of choice."

That bum sitting on a heating grate, smelling like a wharf rat? He's there by
choice. He is there because of the sum total of the choices he has made in his
life. This truism is absolutely the hardest thing for some people to accept,
especially those who consider themselves to be victims of something or other—victims of discrimination, bad luck, the system, capitalism, whatever. After
all, nobody really wants to accept the blame for his or her position in life. Not when it is so much easier to point and say, "Look! He did this to me!" than
it is to look into a mirror and say, "You S. O. B.! You did this to me!" The key
to accepting responsibility for your life is to accept the fact that your
choices, every one of them, are leading you inexorably to either success or
failure, however you define those terms. Some of the choices are obvious:
Whether or not to stay in school Whether or not to get pregnant. Whether or not
to hit the bottle. Whether or not to keep this job you hate until you get
another better-paying job. Whether or not to save some of your money, or saddle
yourself with huge payments for that new car.

Some of the choices are seemingly insignificant: Whom to go to the movies with. Whose car to ride home in. Whether to watch the tube tonight, or read a book on
investing. But, and you can be sure of this, each choice counts. Each choice is
a building block—some large, some small. But each one is a part of the
structure of your life. If you make the right choices, or if you make more right
choices than wrong ones, something absolutely terrible may happen to you. Something unthinkable. You, my friend, could become one of the hated, the evil,
the ugly, the feared, the filthy, the successful, the rich. The rich basically
serve two purposes in this country. First, they provide the investments, the
investment capital, and the brains for the formation of new businesses. Businesses that hire people. Businesses that send millions of paychecks home
each week to the un-rich.

Second, the rich are a wonderful object of ridicule, distrust, and hatred. Few
things are more valuable to a politician than the envy most Americans feel for
the evil rich. Envy is a powerful emotion. Even more powerful than the emotional
minefield that surrounded Bill Clinton when he reviewed his last batch of White
House interns. Politicians use envy to get votes and power. And they keep that
power by promising the envious that the envied will be punished: "The rich will
pay their fair share of taxes if I have anything to do with it." The truth is
that the top 10% of income earners in this country pays almost 50% of all income
taxes collected. I shudder to think what these job producers would be paying if
our tax system were any more "fair."

You have heard, no doubt, that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Interestingly enough, our government's own numbers show that many of the poor
actually get richer, and that quite a few of the rich actually get poorer. But
for the rich who do actually get richer, and the poor who remain poor...there's an explanation—a reason. The rich, you see, keep doing the things
that make them rich; while the poor keep doing the things that make them poor. Speaking of the poor, during your adult life you are going to hear an endless
string of politicians bemoaning the plight of the poor. So, you need to know
that under our government's definition of "poor" you can have a $5 million net
worth, a $300,000 home and a new $90,000 Mercedes, all completely paid for. You
can also have a maid, cook, and valet, and $ million in your checking account,
and you can still be officially defined by our government as "living in
poverty." Now there's something you haven't seen on the evening news.

How does the government pull this one off? Very simple, really. To determine
whether or not some poor soul is "living in poverty," the government measures
one thing—just one thing: Income. It doesn't matter one bit how much you
have, how much you own, how many cars you drive or how big they are, whether or
not your pool is heated, whether you winter in Aspen and spend the summers in
the Bahamas , or how much is in your savings account. It only matters how much
income you claim in that particular year. This means that if you take a one-year
leave of absence from your high-paying job and decide to live off the money in
your savings and checking accounts while you write the next great American
novel, the government says you are 'living in poverty."

This isn't exactly what you had in mind when you heard these gloomy statistics,
is it? Do you need more convincing? Try this. The government's own statistics
show that people who are said to be "living in poverty" spend more than $1.50
for each dollar of income they claim. Something is a bit fishy here. Just
remember all this the next time Charles Gibson tells you about some hideous new
poverty statistics.

Why has the government concocted this phony poverty scam? Because the government
needs an excuse to grow and to expand its social welfare programs, which
translates into an expansion of its power. If the government can convince you,
in all your compassion, that the number of "poor" is increasing, it will have
all the excuse it needs to sway an electorate suffering from the advanced stages
of Obsessive-Compulsive Compassion Disorder.

I'm about to be stoned by the faculty here. They've already changed their minds
about that honorary degree I was going to get. That's OK, though. I still have
my PhD. in Insensitivity from the Neal Boortz Institute for Insensitivity
Training. I learned that, in short, sensitivity sucks. It's a trap. Think about
it—the truth knows no sensitivity. Life can be insensitive. Wallow too much in
sensitivity and you'll be unable to deal with life, or the truth. So, get over
it. Now, before the dean has me shackled and hauled off, I have a few random
thoughts.

You need to register to vote, unless you are on welfare. If you are living off
the efforts of others, please do us the favor of sitting down and shutting up
until you are on your own again.

When you do vote, your votes for the House and the Senate are more important
than your vote for president. The House controls the purse strings, so
concentrate your awareness there.

Liars cannot be trusted, even when the liar is the president of the country. If someone can't deal honestly with you, send them packing.

Don't bow to the temptation to use the government as an instrument of plunder. If it is wrong for you to take money from someone else who earned it—to take
their money by force for your own needs—then it is certainly just as wrong
for you to demand that the government step forward and do this dirty work for
you.

Don't look in other people's pockets. You have no business there. What they
earn is theirs. What you earn is yours. Keep it that way. Nobody owes you
anything, except to respect your privacy and your rights, and leave you the hell
alone.

Speaking of earning, the revered 40-hour workweek is for losers! Forty hours
should be considered the minimum, not the maximum. You don't see highly
successful people clocking out of the office every afternoon at five. The
losers are the ones caught up in that afternoon rush hour. The winners drive
home in the dark.

Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by
definition, needs no protection.

Finally (and aren't you glad to hear that
word), as Og Mandino wrote:

Proclaim your rarity. Each of you is a rare and unique human being.

Use wisely your power of choice.

Go the extra mile...drive home in the dark.

Oh, and put off buying a television set as long as you can. Now, if you have any
idea at all what's good for you, you will get the hell out of here and never
come back.